Thanksgiving Threw Up in My Classroom

OH.MY. Pretty much sums up how I feel when I walk into my classroom. I’m greeted by dangling turkeys, pilgrims galore, and kid work all over the place…and I LOVE IT. Y’all…this last month…3 weeks, I guess…have been a total whirlwind. I didn’t get a chance to do half the things I wanted to, but I’m okay with it because the kids got JUST what they needed! We’ve been furiously preparing ourselves for our annual Grandparent’s/VIP day tomorrow. It’s our biggest event of the year! The kids get to invite the special people in their lives to come watch them perform the most darling little musical routine. This year the theme is 50’s. LOVE. After the performance, all the families are invited back to the classrooms to browse around and take a look at all the fun things the kids are learning. We’ve been learning SO much and we’re so excited to show it off! Here’s a little peek at what our V.I.P’s will see tomorrow….

This past week we read the story, “I Know An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Pie”, by Allison Jackson. Of course, the kids loved it and there was SO much we could do with it!! We created a little reader’s response writing craftivity to go along with the story. LOVED the way these turned out!!!

Their writing prompt was, ‘If I were the old lady, I would swallow a…’. They had to write their choice of Thanksgiving fare :) I got pumpkin rolls, turkeys, yellow cake?!, green beans, mashed ‘butatoes’, rolls, etc. SO fun! After they wrote their sentence, they made a little old lady with googly eyes and a hand drawn picture of the food of their choice.

Last week we read “The Amazing Turkey Race!” and did this little craftivity for a readers response…

Loving the one that says, “Eat more loins.” Of course, it’s supposed to say “lions”. Makes me chuckle every time I walk in the room :)

Of course, we’ve also been talking a lot about being thankful and what that means. We created these little pilgrims to hold our ‘thankful writing’ {inspired by First Grade Blue Skies :)}. The kids were thankful for the funniest things…corn dogs, Christmas, biscuits?!…TOO cute!

I noticed that this poor little pilgrim lost his head :( Oooops!

We did our “How to Catch a Turkey” writing {printable from Deanna Jump’s Thanksgiving Math & Literacy Unit}. We read “Run, Turkey, Run!” before our writing and I LOVED the way the kids made the connection between this how-to and the how-to we wrote when we made root beer floats on the 50th day!

The kids get to take home their placemats tomorrow before they leave for the break. We had our Thanksgiving feast the other day and it was PRECIOUS. A whole buncha pilgrims and Indians just feastin’ away :)

SO…the room’s all ready for our VIPS…

And I’m SO excited for my kids to show off ALL their hard work!!!! It’s been a BUSY 3 weeks!!!

**I get lots of questions asking, “How do you fit EVERYTHING in?!?!?”. Ummm…LOTS of planning! HA! Seriously…most of the writing you see is either completed during our Writer’s Workshop block {followed by draft book} OR they complete it at the writing station during our Daily 5/literacy block. All the craftivities are pre-cut {BLESS my sweet student teacher!!!!}, so all the kids have to do is assemble the parts. This usually takes a total of maybe 10-12{ish} minutes. We can fit that in while they’re eating snack or when we get back in the room from lunch. It’s just a matter of planning it and making sure that it all fits with our objectives. We made our placemats during our Social Studies block of time because that took a lot longer!!!Hope that answers your questions!!**

15 comments:

You are incredible lady!!! Thanksgiving throw up looks great in your classroom!! hahaha You are such an inspiration! I stole one of your ideas from last year (I am pretty sure it was yours..I lose track! haha), we looked through a book about the Mayflower and then my little guys drew pictures on a precut suitcase and labeled objects they would like to bring on the Mayflower :)

I am sure those VIPs will just gush away! Thanks for sharing~ Love everything! I need another November to fit it all in...(no I take that back...I don't want to re-live this month!!!)ReaganTunstall's Teaching Tidbits

Soooo cute!!! I bet the kiddies loved every bit of it. I figured you would've had to precut everything. I was wondering... Does your school have an art class? Or do you have to Incorporate art yourself? Our school has art that our kids rotate to every third day. Therefore, I feel like I miss out on that part of creativity in my room. I guess I can always make time though. Thanks for sharing!classroominspiration1.blogspot.com

Adorable! Your kids are so lucky to have you for their teacher! I bet parents beg your principal to have you as a teacher for their child. It is clear that you not only love your job, you love each and every little girl and guy.

On another note, I am noticing that your student desks look really nice! My eyesight is not so good on the computer, so I am wondering if you really do have 'special' desks or they are really just like all the other desks and I can't see it!

What a wondeful time in your room! I love your ideas! Any chance you will be putting the pattern for the "old lady" on TPT for sell? I would like to purchase!Thanks again for sharing and have a Happy Thanksgiving!Maryannbrennemm@carlisleschools.org

YOU SERIOUSLY HAVE THE CUTEST IDEAS!!!! =) I am totally doing the "If I was an Old Lady, I would swallow a _____." activity tomorrow! I love your "Littlest Pilgrim" activity too and I'm going to do it with my kindergartners too! =) Thank you so much for sharing all your creative ideas and being an inspiration to us all! With love,Jessicahttp://underthealphabettree.blogspot.com

In.Love.With.Your.Classroom! Seriously so awesome! What great ideas and fabulous projects! Sad that Thanksgiving stuff is over and done with for this year, but I'll be back next year to use your awesome ideas!!